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occupied by the prefecture, the old convent of the Capuchins, and the marble church of St Nicholas. Bene volent institutions are specially numerous, and include a hospital dating from 1389, and a communal orphanage from 1608. A public library was founded in 1863. The name of Lecce has long been familiar throughout Italy in connexion with the great tobacco factory now located in the Dominican convent; and cotton and woollen goods, lace, artificial flowers, hats, &c., are among the products of the local industry. The population increased from 17,836 in 1861 to 18,460 in 1871.
Lecce is identified with Lupiæ, a city of the Salentines, and,
though remains of ancient edifices are no longer to be seen, there
is evidence of the existence of extensive substructions as late as the
10th century. The name Lycea, or Lycia, begins to appear in the
6th century. The city was tor some time held by counts of Nor
man blood, among whom the most noteworthy is Bohemond, son
of Robert Guiscard. It afterwards passed to the Orsini. The rank
of provincial capital was bestowed by Ferdinand of Aragon in
acknowledgment of the fidelity of Lecce to his cause. Scipione
Ammirato (Florentine historian), Domenico do Angelis, and G.
Baglivi the anatomist were natives of the city.
LECCO, a city of Italy, in the province of Como, situated
near the southern extremity of the eastern branch of the
Lake of Como, which is frequently distinguished as the
Lake of Lecco. It is the meeting place of several important
roads, and the terminus of a railway from Bergamo, which
joins the line from Milan. To the south the Adda is
crossed by a fine bridge originally canstructed in 1335, and
rebuilt in 1609 by Fuentes. Lecco, in spite of its real
antiquity, presents quite a modern appearance; and it is
the seat of no small industrial activity. Besides the iron
works, which are particularly important, there are brass
foundries and oil- works; and silk spinning, cotton spinning,
and wood carving are successfully prosecuted. The annual
cattle fair lasts fifteen days. In the neighbourhood of the
town is Culeotto, the residence of Manzoni, who in his
Promessi Sposi has left a full description of the district.
The population of Lecco was 6815 in 1871.
In the 11th century Lecco, which had previously been the seat
of a marquisate, was presented to the bishops of Como by Otto II.;
but in the 12th century it passed to the archbishops of Milan, and
in 1127 it assisted the Milanese in the destruction of Como. During
the 13th century it was struggling for its existence with the metro
politan city; and its fate seemed to be sealed when the Visconti
drove its inhabitants across the lake to Valmadrera, and forbade
them to raise their town from its ashes. But in a few years the
people returned; and Azzone Visconti made Lecco a strong fortress,
and united it with the Milanese territory by a bridge across the
Adda. During the 15th and 16th centuries the rock of Lecco was
an object of endless contention. In 1647 the town with its terri
tory was made a countship. The fortifications were finally sold
by Joseph II. to Count Serponti. Merlinis, one of the first Italian
printers, and Morone, Charles V.'s Italian chancellor, were born in
Lecco. See Apostolo, Lecco e suo territorio, Lecco, 1855.
LE CLERC, Jean (1657-1736), or CLERICUS, theo
logian and man of letters, was born March 19, 1657 (o.s.),
at Geneva, where his father Stephen Le Clerc was pro
fessor of Greek. The family had originally belonged to the
neighbourhood of Beauvais in France, and several of its
members have acquired some name in literature. On the
completion of his grammar school course (in which he
made himself remarkable for his omnivorous reading), he
applied himself to the study of philosophy under Chouet
the Cartesian, and from his nineteenth to his twenty-first
year he attended the theological lectures of Mestrezat,
Turretin, and Louis Tronchin. In 1678-79 he spent some
time at Grenoble as tutor in a private family; on his return
to Geneva he passed his examinations and received ordina
tion. Soon afterwards he went to Saumur, where in 1679
were published Liberii de Sancto-Amore Epistolæ Theologicæ
(Irenopoli: Typis Philalethianis), usually attributed to his
pen; they deal with such subjects as the doctrine of the
Trinity, the hypostatical union of the two natures in Jesus
Christ, original sin, and the like, in a manner sufficiently
far removed from that of the conventional orthodoxy of the period. From Geneva, which he still continued to regard as his home, Le Clerc in 1682 went to London, where he remained six months, preaching on alternate Sundays in the Walloon church and in the Savoy chapel. Passing over to Amsterdam he was introduced to Locke and Limborch; the acquaintance with the latter soon ripened into a close friendship, which naturally strengthened his preference for the Remonstrant theology, already favour ably known to him by the writings of his granduncle Curcellæus, and by those of Episcopius. A final attempt to live at Geneva, made at the request of his relatives there, satisfied him of the unwholesomeness of its stifling theological atmosphere, and in 1684 he finally settled at Amsterdam, first as a moderately successful preacher until ecclesiastical jealousy shut him out from that career, and afterwards as professor of philosophy, belles-lettres, and Hebrew in the Remonstrant seminary. This appointment, which he owed to his friend Limborch, he held from 1684 till 1712, when on the death of the latter he was called to occupy the chair of church history also. His suspected Socinianism was the cause, it is said, of his exclusion from the chair of dogmatic theology. Apart from its varied and immense literary labours, his life at Amsterdam was quite uneventful. His marriage to the daughter of Gregorio Leti took place in 1691. In 1728 and following years repeated strokes of paralysis gradually reduced him to a state of mental imbecility, from which he was released by death on January 8, 1736.
A full catalogue of the publications of Le Clerc will be found, along with adequate biographical material, in Haag's France Protestante (where seventy-three works are enumerated), or in Chauffepié's Dictionnaire. Only the most important of these can be mentioned here. In 1685 he published Sentimens de quelques théologiens de Hollande sur l'Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament composée par le P. Richard Simon, in which, while pointing out what he believed to be the faults of that author, he undertook to make some positive contributions towards a right understanding of the Bible. Among these last may be noted his argument against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, his views as to the manner in which the five books actually were composed, his opinions (singularly free for the time in which he lived) on the subject of inspiration in general, and particularly as to the inspiration of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles. Simon's Réponse (1686) elicited from Le Clerc a Défense des Sentimens in the same year, which was followed by a new Réponse (1687). In 1692 appeared his Logica sive Ars Ratiocinandi, and also Ontologia et Pneumatologia; these, with the Physica (1695), are incorporated with the Opera Philosophica which have passed through several editions. In 1693 his series of Biblical commentaries began with that on Genesis; it was not completed until 1731. The portion relating to the New Testament books included the paraphrase and notes of Hammond. Le Clerc's commentary had a great influence in breaking up traditional prejudices and opening men's eyes to the necessity for a more scientific inquiry into the origin and meaning of the Biblical books. It was on all sides hotly attacked, – often for opinions which now seem innocent to the most orthodox. Le Clerc's new edition of the Apostolic Fathers of Cotelerius, published in 1698, marked an advance in the critical study of these documents. But the greatest literary influence of Le Clerc was probably that which he exercised over his contemporaries by means of the serials, or, if one may so call them, reviews, of which he was editor. These were the Bibliothèque universelle et historique (Amsterdam, 25 vols. 12mo, 1686-93), begun along with De la Croze; the Bibliothèque choisie, Amsterdam, 28 vols. 18mo, 1703-13; and the Bibliothèque ancienne et moderne, 29 vols. 18mo, 1714-26. See Le Clerc's Parrhasiana ou Pensées sur des matières de critique, d'histoire, de morale, et de politique: avec la defense de divers ouvrages de M. L. C. par Théodore Parrhase, Amsterdam, 1699; and Vita et opera ad annum MDCCXI., amici ejus opusculum, philosophicis Clerici operibus subjiciendum, also attributed to himself. The supplement to Hammond's notes was translated into English in 1699, Parrhasiana, or Thoughts on Several Subjects, in 1700, and the Harmony of the Gospels in 1701. Twelve Dissertations out of M. Le Clerc's Genesis appeared in 1696.
LECTION, Lectionary, Lector. The Jewish custom
of reading the books of Moses in the synagogues every
Sabbath day was already ancient in the apostolic age, and
we learn from Luke iv. 16, 17, that portions were also
